17G lANTHINID^. 



sentation of the naked animal^ with its forked tentacles, 

 and the cellular apparatus or float by which it is sus- 

 pended in the water. This apparatus he compares to a 

 mass of cartilaginous and glassy foam, or to a cluster of 

 small soap-bubbles, such as the Neapolitan boys were 

 in the habit of making for their amusement and launch- 

 ing out of a window, balloon fashion, which he, perhaps 

 feelingly, called "jocum non jucundum ! '^ The beau- 

 tiful purplish-blue dye which is copiously emitted by the 

 lanthina, staining not only the hands of those who col- 

 lect it but also white paper and linen, and which gives 

 the shell its permanent colour, was likewise the theme 

 of his learned and accurate observation. But either the 

 simplicity or the prurience of the scientific language 

 used in his time unfortunately prohibits the above ex- 

 cellent treatise being now reproduced at greater length. 

 Even some of the works of Linne, whose style was more 

 severe than loose, are not free from what in the present 

 day would be reckoned faults of indecency. Nearly a 

 century after the date of Colonna^s work Breyn again 

 figured the animal of lanthina^ although badly. Further 

 information seems to have been Avanting until 1757, 

 when Carburi, a noted Greek mechanician, briefly re- 

 described it in a letter to Marco Foscarini. He men- 

 tions a strange notion entertained by his countrymen, 

 viz. that the lanthina produces the Velella, a well known 

 kind of oceanic Hydrozoa, which usually accompanies 

 the lanthina and is wafted along by means of its erect 

 gnomon-like crest. They consequently gave it the name 

 of ^^ Armenistarimane,''^ compounded of two Hellenic 

 words signifying mother of the sail-berry. That idea 

 must have originated in the mollusk being sometimes 

 found attached to the hydrozoon, as if the latter issued 

 from it. Carburi had often seen this, and he observed 



